I must have fire-brands!
I must have leaves!
I must have sea-deeps!
EMANUEL MORGAN
Opus 16
DEATH on a cross was not the blade
In Mary's heart . . .
For the mother of man and the son of the maid
Had walked one night apart,
When his beard was not yet grown—and, afraid,
She had seen his young words dart.
Between a mother and a son,
The guillotine . . .
It falls, it falls, and one by one,
Unseeing and unseen,
They face the great sharp shining ton
That time has eaten green.
Between the shoulder and the head
The guillotine must play
And cleave with clash unmerited
The generating day . . .
Till the separated parts, not dead,
Rise and walk away.
ANNE KNISH
Opus 134
LISTEN, my friend,
That you may understand me.—
In my earliest youth
I dreamed in hues volcanic.
I saw each day open
Like a curtain of flame.
Black slaves attended
My waking moments;
Three ebony slaves
Washed sleep from my white body.
Three ebony slaves
Around my ivory smoothness
Folded heavy robes
Of crimson and white.
And as I issued forth
Into the blue vault of the daylight
A grey ape pranced before me
And a leopard crept behind.